Rustam Minnikhanov takes part in a meeting of the Council by the Russian Presidential Envoy in the Volga Federal District dedicated to issues of scientific and technological development

On 7 August the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov took part via videoconference in a meeting of the Council by the Russian Presidential Envoy Igor Komarov in the Volga Federal District , which discussed the role of Russian entities at the hew stage of scientific and technological development .

Opening the meeting, Igor Komarov emphasized that the security and development of the country are ensured by a reliable scientific basis and breakthrough technologies and reminded about steps already take by an errand from Russian President Vladimir Putin to ensure the technological leadership, such as the concept of technological development by 2030, the Strategy of scientific and technological development , priority development spheres and the list of the most important science-driven technologies.

The Envoy stated that “currently it is important to integrate regions into the one scientific and technological space for successful solution of technological sovereignty tasks and satisfaction of economy and society demands”, and added that the main task is to join interests of science and business and to build an efficient system for communication of all participants of the process.

In his turn Russian Deputy Head of the Government Dmitriy Chernyshenko stated that joint efforts of regional teams in coordination with business, universities and scientific organizations play an important role and informed about actions taken in 80 regions of Russia and pilot projects under implementation in 20 entities including 7 in the Volga Federal District. 

He said that universities and scientific organizations actively use federal tools of state support such as the grants allocated on the construction of modern university campuses, the advanced engineering schools, the youth research labs and four world level scientific-educational centers.

Dmitriy Chernyshenko also said that the Volga Federal District ranks the first in the number of created Professionalism clusters and there are 99 of them in such spheres as machine-building, agriculture, radio electronics and others and added that half of regions of the District are in the list of top 30 in scientific and technological development. 

Russian Minister of Higher Education and Science Valeriy Falkov told participants of the meeting that the system of specialists training is being improved within the framework of the solution of scientific and technological development tasks and informed that since 2020 the Ministry has been consistently solving the issues of accessibility of the higher education,  first of all in regions. 

“The number of state –funded places has increased by more than 50 thousand compared to 2020 and about additional 30 thousand have been allocated to the new regions. As a result currently 60.2 per cent of school graduates can qualify for free tuition.  At the same time nearly 75 per cent of allocated places are given to regional universities which helps to solve the problems of outflow of young people and highly qualified specialists to big agglomerations,” the Minister said.